An inevitable disaster
This New Year brought with it a catastrophe to the Hunza Valley, in Gilgit-Baltistan. On 4 January, a crack in the slope of the village lands of Attabad, in the Upper Hunza Valley, widened, causing terraces and houses to collapse. A major landslide subsequently led to a wave of dust and gravel, which eventually blocked and dammed the Hunza River. Since then, that water has been collecting into a massive lake, which by mid-May was threatening to overflow its banks, inundating dozens of villages.
The crack in the slope was actually discovered more than a decade ago, in the aftermath of the Astor earthquake of 1998. At that time, humanitarian organisations such as Focus, an Aga Khan-funded NGO, advised nearby villagers to begin moving their homes, warning that the area was highly unstable. Government authorities refrained from designing a proper resettlement scheme, and villagers hesitated in leaving. As a result, some 19 people recently lost their lives, nearly 50 houses were completely destroyed, and more than 1500 people have been displaced. Nearly two kilometres of the Karakoram Highway, Chinese-engineered work on which was taking place, was damaged and left covered by debris; other roads and bridges have been submerged in the Gojal area of Upper Hunza, including Gulmit, the administrative tehsil headquarters of Gojal. The lake level, meanwhile, continued to rise.